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The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

space.com

41–50 of 185 posts

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#41
post #2

> One side effect of the magnetic field shift is slight but primarily beneficial: It can help shield Earth from galactic cosmic rays — high-energy subatomic particles that travel at near light speed and can damage spacecraft and harm orbiting astronauts who are outside Earth's protective atmosphere. Buried three sentences from the end of the article, after a wall of ads and filler (I'm impatient).

Why? Is it because the poles are aligned with earths, complimenting our own magnetic field?

It appears the magnetic poles are in continuous rotation [1], that sometimes aligns to the rotational poles and sometimes doesn't, with a "flip" event being the binary classification from the slow and smooth traversal over the equator. I feel silly, but I always assumed it was from some more fairly sharp step in the rate of change!

[1] https://www.stce.be/news/211/welcome.html

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#42
We know so much and yet so little. The writing is in the article stating how mathematically they have no model, therefore they cannot truly understand it yet (researchers/academics).

This is true for climate change and it's own challenges along with many other applications of similar nature where models are incomplete or entirely missing large portions of data needed to further true understanding of a given process.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#43
post #29
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

causality0 was making statements about his credentials and expertise, not his personal characteristics. I think ad hominem definitionally has to be irrelevant. “x knows nothing about topic y” is not ad hominem even if it is a false statement.

People really ought to learn that pointing out a fallacy doesn't suddenly make it false. I mean I could point out that that is known as the fallacy fallacy, but then I'd be doing the same thing myself.

Really a fallacy represents a particular weak argument. The way to defeat them is not to name the correct fallacy but to point out the weakness.

If that doesn't work then you likely have the wrong fallacy, or the argument isn't fallacious to begin with.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#44
post #20

If you're open to exiting an novel theories on why this happens, check out Dr. Robitaille liquid sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUZ0Obpihbc

I was just about to suggest the same thing.

Here's a related Veritasium episode: "The Bizarre Behavior of Rotating Bodies"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VPfZ_XzisU

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#45
post #36

Can one use Sun's magnetic field for navigation? I imagine Sun compass would be far more precise than Earth compass, no?

You want something to make it easier to find the sun ? Anyway the sun's magnetic fields is ridiculously weak on earth.

Well, one always has to consider the first manned expedition to the Sun and how they'll navigate.

Telling time of day would be the first problem as it's always high noon. And star sightings might prove challenging, at least at optical frequencies.

(Am now thinking of an SF story set on the Sun in which navigation and timekeeping play critical roles....)

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#46
post #38

The earth too it seem, but on a longer timeframe. Does someone here know more about this?

Earth's magnetic field rotates in irregular intervals. The terrifying part is, the time it takes to complete the rotation, the different intermediate magnetic poles cancel each other out, and we are left with a much smaller magnetic field overall. As low as 10% of what earth has today.

Astrum's channel on youtube has several pictures and complete analysis[1]. (I have downloaded the whole channel on my computer, that's the filename.)

[1] How The Earth Got Its Magnetic Field (And Why It Might Not Protect Us Much Longer)

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#47
post #35

So... What's the range and how do we modulate it?

The range would be awesome, but the city took pretty significant offense to my plan to setup a 11 lightyear dipole antenna on my property.

It's a hard life being an amateur radio operator these days...

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#48
post #36

Can one use Sun's magnetic field for navigation? I imagine Sun compass would be far more precise than Earth compass, no?

You want something to make it easier to find the sun ? Anyway the sun's magnetic fields is ridiculously weak on earth.

Why, yes. It's really hard to find sun in fog, which is frequent at sea. And you really want it's location to be precise for navigation.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#49

We know so much and yet so little. The writing is in the article stating how mathematically they have no model, therefore they cannot truly understand it yet (researchers/academics). This is true for climate change and it's own challenges along with many other applications of similar nature where models are incomplete or entirely missing large portions of data needed to further true understanding of a given process.

The sentiment captures the essence of the human pursuit of knowledge...
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